More Iraq Bloodshed: 49 Killed, 83 Wounded
The number of seemingly random attacks was high again today. In them, at least 49 people were killed and 83 more were wounded.
The number of seemingly random attacks was high again today. In them, at least 49 people were killed and 83 more were wounded.
RT | July 31, 2013
A ruling this week in a United States appeals court means officers of the law can legally and physically track down suspects based off of cell phone data without ever obtaining a warrant.
A 2-1 decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Tuesday means law enforcement needn’t prove probable cause when asking a telecom company for location data that could be used to pinpoint suspected criminals.
By Mozhgan Savabieasfahani | July 30, 2013
To the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Iraqi Ministry of Health: (New signatures added)
The back-breaking burden of cancers and birth defects continues to weigh heavily on the Iraqi people.
The joint WHO and Iraqi Ministry of Health Report on cancers and birth defect in Iraq was originally due to be released in November 2012. It has been delayed repeatedly and now has no release date whatsoever.
RT | July 31, 2013
Syria has agreed to let three sites undergo investigation by a team of UN chemical weapons experts to assess whether the accusations that the country employed the devices during the country’s two year civil war carried any weight.
“The Mission will travel to Syria as soon as possible to contemporaneously investigate three of the reported incidents, including Khan al-Asal,” U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s press office told Reuters in a statement.
The American face of Europe's failed Austerity AgendaMichael Tomasky is a pretty sharp guy-- and not some kind of Beltway shill. So when he professes that Obama might be going in a progressive direction, I thought it would be worth at least hearing him out. In the Daily Beast Monday he warned Obama not to blow his moment.
By Malik Samara | Al-Akhbar | July 31, 2013
Qalandiya, a village on the outskirts of occupied Jerusalem, has become a stark example of the crimes of the Israeli occupation. In the name of “security needs,” Israel has bisected the village, dividing both land and people, even splitting one family in two.
Noting Rosie Gray’s ridiculously smug piece in that learned journal of policy wonkdom known as Buzzfeed, our own Lucy Steigerwald reflects on the burning question of why Sen. Rand Paul and Rep. Justin Amash, “should-be friends to the whistleblower remained oddly quiet” on the subject of Bradley Manning’s recent conviction on espionage charges.
See my latest piece at The Huffington Post: Bradley Manning Revealed Crimes Far Worse Than the Ones He Supposedly Committed.
Here’s a riddle: How do you make it easier to push through legislation in Congress that is overwhelmingly opposed in the public without any political consequences?
Answer: Keep the votes secret.
Stars and Stripes
July 30, 2013
US deploying jets around Asia to keep China surrounded
By John Reed
WASHINGTON:The United States Air Force will dramatically expand its military presence across the Pacific this year, sending jets to Thailand, India, Singapore and Australia, according to the service’s top general in the region.
By Noel Brinkerhoff and Danny Biederman | AllGov | July 31, 2013
A former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer has gone public with claims that the George W. Bush administration agreed to an Italian trial of CIA officials for abducting an Islamic cleric in 2003, so that the president and other senior leaders would be protected from prosecution.
The partner to this post is Iraq, Libya, Pakistan Prison Breaks that advance the NATO war agenda These two posts work together, best.
The partner to this post is Syrian "rebels" play politics at UN & massacre civilians. Israel to counter "ship killers" They work best together. I feel this is a post that is overdue. In a perfect world this would have been up on Monday or Tuesday at the latest. But then, this is not a perfect world and time is not always on my side.Let’s talk prison breaks. Because prisoners are breaking out all over the place.
The GOP leadership is engaged in rank ideological policing. Increasing numbers of Republicans are deviating from the neo-conservative platform and Rand Paul is at the top of the naughty list.
Hanabusa and the crooked husband have their sites set on the U.S. SenateTuesday afternoon we looked at what a mistake it is to compromise ideals with craven corporate interests and the political hacks they finance.
Al Arabiya
July 31, 2013
NATO says it is keeping close eye on Egypt, plans no action
NATO is keeping a close eye on Egypt and watching how the crisis there affects its “partners,” the alliance’s top military commander has said , according to Reuters.
A UN report documents 1,319 civilian deaths and 2,533 injuries in Afghanistan in the first six months of 2013, a 23 percent increase over the same period in 2012. The study finds “a 14 percent increase in deaths, 28 percent increase in injuries and 23 percent increase in total civilian casualties.”
For over two years now, I have been periodically filing reports at this blog concerning the still ongoing situation at Fukushima Japan. Few people have noticed with all the MSM crap news focused elsewhere in this sick world, that the Fukushima nuclear disaster with at least 3 nuclear reactors in full meltdown, is still going on and in fact the situation is still very much out of control! Personally, I have felt over the last while that since I was one of few people brave enough to continue to file reports about this situation, that I was basically "beating a dead horse", and few people a
In my previous article, the question was asked as to why the hell this nation, Canada, bends over backwards to support the criminal and terrorist entity known as "Israel". The original article from the Redress Information and Analysis website both asked the question and tried to explain the reasoning for Canada's undying love for a criminal state. I also gave my own explanation as to WHY this nation supports such an evil country....Now it appears that the Redress site has done a followup to their original article that tries to explain why this nation gives its undying love to Israel...
Fukushima radiation millions of times over safe limit- WSJ reported the other day....The radiation is millions of times higher than Japan's acceptable limit under normal circumstances.
By now you're probably well aware that GOP presidential rivals Chris Christie and Rand Paul are already slugging it out-- over national security and governing philosophy. It looks to be pretty ugly, as anything Christie gets involved in always turns out to be. But their disputes aren't just a matter of two ambitious Republicans trying to knock each other out of presidential contention.
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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
Roger Martin du Gard: Selections on war
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Roger Martin du Gard
From Epilogue to Les Thibault (1940)
Translated by Stuart Gilbert
In “The Epidemic of Mental Illness: Why?” (New York Review of Books, 2011), Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, discusses over-diagnosis of psychiatric disorders, pathologizing of normal behaviors, Big Pharma corruption of psychiatry, and the adverse effects of psychiatric medications.
IMEMC & Agencies | July 30, 2013
Witnesses reported that Israeli forces raided the Cremisan Monastery in Bethlehem late on Sunday [July 28]. The witnesses told the Palestinian News and Info Agency (WAFA) that Israeli soldiers broke into the monastery, held the people who were inside, and inspected their personal documents.
By Stuart Littlewood | Palestine Chronicle | July 30, 2013
Why, after 65 years, is the Palestinian homeland still under foreign military occupation and total blockade when international law and the United Nations say it shouldn’t be?
And why have the Palestinians been pressured – yet again – to submit to ‘direct negotiations’, lamb versus voracious wolf, to haggle and plead for their freedom?
RT | July 30, 2013
Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin has praised Russian authorities for not caving in to pressure from abroad, saying granting asylum to US whistleblower Edward Snowden would help prevent the establishment of a ‘global electronic prison camp’.
“It is encouraging news that Russia is demonstrating its independence in this case as it has in many others, despite the pressure” said the head of the Holy Synod’s Department for Relations between the Church and Society.
Within days of the inauguration of Hassan Rouhani as Iran’s new president, both Tehran and Washington appear to be sending positive signals to each other. The latest came Monday in a flurry of reports from Iran that its former ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammad Javad Zarif, is Rouhani’s pick as his foreign minister. “If […]
In the 30 years, since President Ronald Reagan created his expensive pie-in-the-sky Strategic Defense Initiative – quickly and appropriately named "Star Wars" by critics and journalists alike – the United States has spent a whopping $250 billion on trying to shoot down fast intercontinental ballistic missiles, such as those that might someday be fielded by [...]
Newly published recollections by the former French ambassador to Iran suggest that Iran was not running a covert nuclear weapons programme that it then decided to halt in late 2003, as concluded by U.S. intelligence in 2007. Ambassador Francois Nicoullaud recounted conversations with high-ranking Iranian officials indicating that Tehran’s then nuclear policy chief – and [...]
Asked about the national debate unleashed by the Snowden revelations, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie declared war on libertarians: “As a former prosecutor who was appointed by President George W. Bush on Sept. 10, 2001, I just want us to be really cautious, because this strain of libertarianism that’s going through both parties right now [...]
The sun rose with a moral verdict on Bradley Manning well before the military judge could proclaim his guilt. The human verdict would necessarily clash with the proclamation from the judicial bench. In lockstep with administrators of the nation’s war services, judgment day arrived on Tuesday to exact official retribution. After unforgiveable actions, the defendant’s [...]
"This is the worst coverage of a religious story I have seen to date."-- Father Jonathan Morris, in "What Pope Francis reallysaid about gays -- and no, it's not new," on foxnews.com"I wasn't great at judging homosexuals my first year in the job, either.
At least 33 people were killed, and 73 more were wounded in the latest violence. Although there were many attacks, they did not seem coordinated.
West war crimes in Syria exposed
Horror inflicted on the Syrian people by Western –backed militants. This is Al-Khaalidiyya district of HomsImage courtesy Syrian Perspective
by Finian Cunningham
There was a time during the 30-month covert dirty war on Syria when the Western governments and mainstream media would make a clamor over reported massacres.
By Marc Rogers | The Argentina Independent | July 30, 2013
Bolivian president Evo Morales today inaugurated the first factory for coca-based products, highlighting their health benefits and medicinal uses.
The new plant, opened in a suburb of La Paz, will process around 75,000 tonnes of coca leaf a year to make drinkable infusions, such as coca mate and teas.
This dirty little Spanish fascist didn't even make the trains run on timeThere are certainly corrupt Democrats too-- plenty of them. But corruption isn't encouraged by their party's Greed and Selfishness Ayn Randian philosophical underpinnings. Conservatism is about what Depeche Mode called the grabbing hands that get all they can. In the U.S.
Mohammed Assaf: champion of the people or the powerful?
by Reem Kelani The Electronic Intifada
Bradley Manning got nailed today by a military judge for exposing the truth. The folks who committed war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq have almost all walked scot-free. The folks who made the policies that led to the abuses have never faced federal charges. Dreamworks has a movie on Wikileaks that will be coming out this Fall. This is as good a day as any to view the trailer….
Fascist hack Roberto Calderoli and Minister Cecile KyengeIn April, Dr. Cécile Kyenge, originally born in the Congo, was sworn in as Italy's Integration Minister. Elected to the Chamber of Deputies, she is also the first black person in an Italian Cabinet. And neo-fascists, who are a powerful, resurgent force in Italy, went bananas... literally.
Eric Draitser of StopImperialism.com appears on RT’s CrossTalk to discuss the state of the US economy, specifically the assault on working people and the poor. Eric explains how low wage jobs have been used as a weapon by the ruling class to convert the US economy from a high wage economy to one that is typified by low wages, temporary jobs, and a reduced standard of living. Eric also examines many other aspects of this issue in this half hour program.